


lifted

by winchilsea



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: BPD Victor Nikiforov, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Nail Polish, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 02:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11887818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winchilsea/pseuds/winchilsea
Summary: “I can’t remember when I last painted my nails.”Yuuri remembers. Russian Nationals, Viktor’s eighth year in the senior division. The same time he cut his hair. Between the see-saw contradictory reactions Yuuri had to the hair—deep, abiding sorrow and sharp, unmistakable attraction—he’d nearly missed the fact that Viktor’s nails weren’t painted to match his costume.





	lifted

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr [here](http://winchilsea.tumblr.com/post/162899009017/the-nail-polish-fic-since-its-unlikely-to-be)
> 
>  
> 
> _you gave me hope / gave me hope / woke my drifting soul / and led me home / led me home_

St. Petersburg, early morning. Mid-April, and the weather has gotten deceptively warmer so that Yuuri regrets going out both with and without a jacket. Mornings are cold, afternoons are warm. They’re flying to Fukuoka in three days, and then they’ll be in Hasetsu. Home.

Yuuri, who spent five years in Detroit and could never afford the luxury of going home just to visit, takes this in stride as he has with everything else in this new life. He has a fiancé. His fiancé is Viktor Nikiforov. His fiancé is also his coach. His coach is his formerly untouchable skating idol. He lives in St. Petersburg with his fiancé who is Viktor Nikiforov and they fly _home_ to Hasetsu and oh god, what has Yuuri ever done to deserve any of this?

“Exist,” is what Viktor would answer if they were tucked against each other on the couch, hands wrapped around mugs of tea as they whispered back and forth little things that weren’t secrets, not really, but felt like it.

“Pole danced,” is what Viktor would answer approximately any other time with the sort of gleeful joy to which Yuuri has become inoculated, so now instead of turning red, Yuuri can shoot Viktor a glare and watch him immediately clam up. Not that the repentant silence ever lasts long. Not that the silence is ever actually repentant.

Waking alone in bed has reasons predictable enough that Yuuri’s anxiety is quietly pushed back with the thought of breakfast. He gropes around in the vague direction of Viktor’s pillow, smiling into his own when he feels the sharp crinkle of paper. “Good morning! I love you!!!” the note says in Japanese, Viktor’s terrible handwriting making the kanji out of proportion to the other characters. There’s a heart drawn around the message accompanied by sloppy stars.

Yuuri rolls over to reach under the bed for a tin box and, after running his fingers over the words one last time, tucks the note away with all the others.

When Yuuri makes it out to the living room, damp from a shower and wearing one of Viktor’s sweaters, the warm smell of coffee greets him, sharply punctuated by something chemical. He wrinkles his nose. It takes him a second to place the smell, and he remembers what it is the same time he sees Viktor on the couch, frowning in concentration as he paints his nails.

The curtains are open, and the morning light that comes through the window and settles over Viktor is blue.

“Good morning,” Yuuri says around a yawn, bunny slippers shuffling on the hardwood. Viktor returns the greeting without looking away from his nails, but he tilts his cheek up when Yuuri gets close. They have their routines now, habits and gestures that don’t require thought, buoyed by the warmth of familiarity.

Amusement flits through Yuuri as a crease forms between Viktor’s eyebrows. He’s paused for too long, and sure enough Viktor looks up with a questioning pout. There’s the lilt of his name falling out of Viktor’s mouth, which only serves to make him laugh softly as he runs the back of his hand along Viktor’s jawline.

Viktor leans into the touch and closes his eyes.

“Oh, Vitya,” Yuuri sighs through his laughter, “you’re always so easy for me.”

“Always,” Viktor agrees quietly, and Yuuri presses a kiss to the corner of his small smile. Viktor tries to chase him, deepen the kiss, but Yuuri pulls back to press another kiss against his forehead.

He has Viktor’s head cradled in his hands, his thumbs against the soft creases under Viktor’s eyes. Yuuri can spend days staring at Viktor’s face, taking in every line and blemish and wrinkle, and he still won’t get ever tired of it, of rediscovering the small details, of the wonderment that comes after pulling away and taking in the entirety of him.

Leaning in, Yuuri brushes the tips of their noses together. Viktor smells like the fancy skin care products he bought when they were in Pyeongchang, dark and sweet all at once. It makes Yuuri turn his head, trace the sharp line of Viktor’s cheekbone with the tip of his nose—“ _Yuuri_ ,” Viktor whines, trying to capture Yuuri’s mouth again in vain—until he reaches that spot underneath Viktor’s ear, one of the many hidden nooks and crannies of Viktor’s body that he has committed to memory, and takes a deep breath.

There’s still the chemical smell of the nail polish tinting it all, but Yuuri doesn’t mind. He thinks he can get used to anything if it’s Viktor.

Yuuri climbs onto the couch and kneels between Viktor’s spread legs, following a simple impulse to be closer.

“I like you like this,” Viktor says. It has the tone of a confession, and Yuuri feels himself go warm with the memory of them standing on the podium together, the secret smile Viktor gave him while saying _I like looking up at you._ “Just woken up and wearing my clothes.”

“That’s funny,” Yuuri says, turning Viktor’s head to the side so he can kiss his cheek. “Yesterday, you said you liked me best in yoga pants.”

“It’s true.”

“And the day before that? With the apron?”

“Well,” Viktor hedges, allowing Yuuri to tilt his head back so he can kiss the underside of his jaw, “that was less about the apron and more about the—cooking.”

Yuuri knows what he means. The fact that they were elbow to elbow in the kitchen of their home. The fact that they could laugh and bump hips as they worked around each other. They fact that they held each other and swayed to the music while they waited for the soup to simmer. The fact that it was conclusive proof they were building a life together.

“Which one is the truth?”

“I like you best.”

“Flattery won’t work, Mr. Nikiforov,” Yuuri says, tapping Viktor’s nose twice. “I have a fiancé.”

Viktor rocks up the moment Yuuri pulls back with a laugh, presses a kiss just above the collar of the sweater. It’s a simple touch of his lips, but his tongue follows, then his teeth, and then he has his forehead resting against Yuuri’s shoulder. Yuuri slides his hands through Viktor’s hair, cradles his head, feels him smiling against his skin.

There are so many things Yuuri can say, but none of them feel like they’re enough—too small, too flimsy.

It’s Viktor who breaks the moment, trailing kisses from Yuuri’s exposed shoulder up his neck, saying, “I made you coffee.”

Yuuri puts his hands on Viktor’s shoulders to push him back. “Where.”

“On the”—Viktor looks around—“couch. Somewhere. It’s in the thermos.” He frowns at their many cushions and blankets as though looking baffled enough will make the linens cough the thermos back out.

In the end, Yuuri digs around in the veritable nest piled on the couch until he comes into contact with the cold of stainless steel. He pulls it out, triumphant, and settles against Viktor, back to front, before opening the thermos. Steam wafts out of it, and Yuuri makes a content sound, sinking down a little further until Viktor can rest his chin on top of Yuuri’s head.

Viktor uncaps his bottle of nail polish again, applying a second layer.

“It’s been a while since you’ve done this,” Yuuri says, mouth against the rim of the thermos, breathing in the smell while it’s still too hot to drink.

“Years,” Viktor agrees. The sound vibrates against Yuuri’s spine like a warm touch, and he feels his eyelids start to droop a little. Not enough to be sleepy, but enough to want to indulge in the comfort. “I can’t remember when I last painted my nails.”

Yuuri remembers. Russian Nationals, Viktor’s eighth year in the senior division. The same time he cut his hair. Between the see-saw contradictory reactions Yuuri had to the hair—deep, abiding sorrow and sharp, unmistakable attraction—he’d nearly missed the fact that Viktor’s nails weren’t painted to match his costume.

Nearly.

Yuuri doesn’t say any of that out loud even though he suspects Viktor already knows.

“I always thought you got them professionally done.”

“For competitions.” It shows a little, in the smudges along the tip of his thumb, the edges that the polish doesn’t quite fill, but there’s a practiced movement to it. Two strokes, and done.

“Why did you stop?” Yuuri asks.

“Stop?” Viktor pauses, a physical manifestation of—something.

“Why did you stop painting your nails,” Yuuri clarifies.

Brush dipping back into the bottle, neat swipes to clear excess polish. Viktor says slowly, “I didn’t see the point.”

In the ensuing silence, Yuuri frowns to himself and tries to parse the answer into something that fits into what little he knows of Viktor’s past. He doesn’t like to speak of it, always gesturing toward now or the future, and he only ever reaches as far back as the banquet in Sochi now if someone presses. Like he’s moving his own timeline up, or setting fire to his own history, or like it’s all slipped through his fingers.

The magazine clippings that Yuuri used to collect—still collects, though now it’s him and Viktor sitting on their living room floor and cutting them out together—don’t reveal as much as Yuuri once thought they did.

“The hair, the nails,” Viktor continues, almost airily. “I didn’t see the point in them. In anything. I got—tired. I got tired.”

“But you’re painting them now.” Maybe Yuuri should stop pressing. The long shadow in Viktor’s past is only that—a shadow. Even if Yuuri tells himself that he’s only trying to give Viktor a chance to bring it up, it still feels selfish. Like he’s digging for the boy whose posters decorated his room.

The coffee is bitter and warm as it goes down.

There’s so much of Viktor that’s half-hidden, facets only visible at certain angles and almost impossible to piece together. Yuuri’s never been good at reading people, too caught up in his own self-destructive biases, but he wants to learn Viktor. Every part of him. Even the things Viktor would rather push into a dark corner and pretend don’t exist.

That’s what it comes down to: Yuuri wanting to lay claim to the entirety of Viktor.

“I am,” Viktor says. “It feels easier now”—both hands painted, he caps the bottle and places it on the coffee table—“to find myself.”

The gold ring on Viktor’s hand glints, brightened by the sun coming through the window. It shines like a beacon for Yuuri, a spear of light in the middle of the storm. A reminder of not only where Yuuri belongs, but to whom Viktor belongs. He likes thinking about it, and he likes how it catches his eye while he’s in the middle of something else, how he turns to look at it compulsively—how he always catches Viktor doing the same.

Yuuri settles his hand on top of Viktor’s, slotting their fingers together, watching the light gleam over the pearly pink of his nails. Carefully, slowly, he brings their linked hands up to his lips, the cold metal of Viktor’s ring against his skin, the convex movement of Viktor’s sharp inhale against his spine.

Clicking the thermos closed, Yuuri readjusts his hold on Viktor’s hand until this time both their palms are pressed together. Again, he kisses Viktor’s ring and lets himself linger there. He hears Viktor sigh, feels the warm ebb of his breath behind the back of his ear.

Just wait, Yuuri thinks, unable to suppress his smile. Even after all this time—he darts his tongue out, licks a wet stripe from the knuckle down into the webbing between Viktor’s fingers—Viktor never sees him coming.

Viktor’s hand spasms before gripping Yuuri’s hand tightly. “Yuuri,” he chokes out, breathing punctuated by stutters.

Yuuri licks again on the other side of his ring finger, this time slower. There’s a tell-tale shine of spit on his skin. “Careful,” he murmurs, “or you’ll ruin your nails.” It only makes Viktor loosen his grip imperceptibly, but Yuuri rewards him anyway with a kiss to each of his knuckles, lips trailing down to the bend of his wrist.

Yuuri licks the taste of coffee off his teeth before sliding out of Viktor’s lap and going to his knees. It’s not easy to catch a Viktor that isn’t immaculate, but maybe that’s just Yuuri’s own biased opinion. Even drooling into his pillow, even sweating in the summer, even hungover without an ounce of sleep—

Even flushed, and dazed, and undone.

“Here,” Yuuri murmurs, guiding Viktor hands to his shoulders. The pads of Viktor’s fingers immediately press down.

 

*

 

Afterwards, Yuuri curls up against Viktor’s side and applies his top coat for him. 

“I know who you are,” Yuuri says, and believes it. 

The response comes slowly, barely interrupting the hazy quality of morning that has settled over them. “Tell me.”

 _You’re Viktor. You’re mine._

“You leave notes on your pillow when you wake up before me in the morning. You make me coffee and pour it into a thermos so it’ll still be hot when I get up. You think I don’t know you use the dishwasher, but I do. Viktor, you”—he looks up, makes sure that Viktor’s looking at him—“you introduce me as your husband sometimes, even though we’re not married yet. ”

Later, he’ll write it all down later, but right now Yuuri has no more room for words.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on [tumblr](http://winchilsea.tumblr.com)!


End file.
